OF CENTRAL INDIA AND BENGAL. 209 



plant remains with those with which I was familiar from India, but 

 further a very remarkable and strikingly curious identity in the 

 lithological character and structure of the rocks themselves ; this 

 identity being by no means confined to one of the groups of beds, 

 but having a marked persistence in all. Thus the fine-grained, 

 earthy, fawn-colored sandstones and shales in which the remains of 

 Phyllotheca and Glossopteris abound in the Australian rocks are pre- 

 cisely such as might, from mineral character, be supposed to have been 

 taken from the upper beds of Central India, (the " Upper Damuda" 

 of Mr. Medlicott) : the coal itself presents identically the same lami- 

 nated texture, the surface of the laminae thickly covered with mineral 

 charcoal, or the half fossilized remains of woody-tissue; and still 

 more curiously, the same very peculiar curved jointing giving rise to 

 that remarkable " ball" structure (see above) as in the Indian coal of 

 the Raniganj Field ; and this, in just as great perfection in the Aus- 

 tralian coals. And still further, many of the lower beds of the 

 Australian group, there so abundantly rich in marine fossils, are very 

 similar to many of the beds in the Indian Talchir series. There is 

 the same mixture of pebbles, and large rolled masses in a matrix of 

 fine silt ; and much of this silt is of exactly the same peculiar blueish- 

 green tint, so characteristic of these beds in this country, and which, 

 once seen, can never be mistaken. 



I would not be misunderstood as desiring to give any great weight 

 to a similarity in mineral texture or lithological aspect, in attempting 

 to ascertain the true position of these rocks. But I am satisfied that 

 this identity has a value, and by no means a light value, when, taken 

 in connexion with every other point of evidence which is available, it 

 is found in all cases tending to turn the balance in the same direction. 

 And, basing my views on these considerations, I ventured* to hold out 

 a prospect in anticipation, that future researches would enable a more 

 * Jour. As. Soc, Bengal, May 1861. 



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